Zachary A. Martz

Presidential Photobomb

There’s a certain kind of quiet inside the Lincoln Memorial—stone and echo, like a room built to hold its breath. And then, of course, there’s us: bundled up, leaning in close, trying to fit a whole day into one small frame.

We snapped this photo and only later really noticed how perfect the timing was. Lincoln sits behind us in his permanent, patient stillness, looking like he’s tolerating the modern ritual of the selfie with the same calm he gives everything else. It feels like a photobomb, but the slow, presidential kind—less “gotcha,” more “remember where you are.”

Washington, D.C. has a way of doing that. You walk around with coffee in your hand, chatting about where to go next, and suddenly you’re standing in front of something you’ve seen your whole life in textbooks. The scale of it doesn’t hit you all at once; it comes in pieces: the cold air, the marble, the softness of light on white stone.

We came for a photo, but left with that lingering feeling that some places are bigger than their monuments. They’re built out of memory, and the quiet pressure of history, and the strange comfort of being very small for a moment—together—while something enormous sits watching from the background.

30th Birthday with original CM team

Thirty is a funny kind of milestone. It doesn’t arrive with a drumroll so much as a quiet click—like a door latching behind you—and suddenly you’re standing in a room that feels both familiar and newly lit.

This one was spent with the original CM team, gathered close beneath big gold balloon letters that spelled out a simple, bright permission to celebrate. Drinks in hand, we held still for a moment in front of a wall of books, the background hum of a home around us—shelves, frames, small evidence of everyday life. The photo catches that in-between feeling: polished enough to mark the occasion, relaxed enough to be real.

I keep thinking about how time folds people together. Work becomes friendship without anyone making an announcement. You look up and realize you’ve collected a small history—shared late nights, inside jokes, the steady rhythm of showing up. It’s not loud, but it lasts.

If birthdays are supposed to measure anything, I hope it’s this: the warmth of familiar faces, the comfort of being known, and the kind of joy that doesn’t need much more than a room, a few friends, and a little gold light bouncing around.

30th bday Bubbles with Devon

Thirty feels like a small threshold you don’t notice until you’re standing in it—hands wrapped around a glass, the room soft with warm light, and everything glittering just enough to make ordinary moments feel ceremonial.

For this 30th birthday, the bubbles did their job: they slowed time down. The gold streamers behind us caught every flicker and turned it into a kind of weather—shimmering, patient, and a little unreal. Devon and I leaned into that brightness, shoulder to shoulder, holding our drinks the way you hold a quiet wish before you say it out loud.

I love parties most for their small details: the clink of glass, the half-second of eye contact before a toast, the way laughter rises and then settles again. The camera grabs one frame, but the night is really made of movement—people drifting in and out of conversation, music in the background, a thousand tiny celebrations happening at once.

Thirty isn’t a reinvention. It’s more like a new coat pulled on from the laundry room—familiar, worn in, and suddenly meaningful when you realize how many seasons it has already seen.

Here’s to gold light, good company, and the simple kindness of marking time together.

30th Bday with Jen

Thirty feels like a small threshold you step over without noticing until you turn around and see the room differently. Jen’s 30th birthday was all warm light and gold—shimmering fringe on the wall, a little metallic party hat tilted into place, and two coupe glasses held up like punctuation.

There’s something comforting about a simple celebration: a backdrop that catches every stray bit of light, a few friends close enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, and the quiet agreement that the moment is worth keeping. The gold made everything feel brighter than it probably was, the way memory does—taking ordinary corners of a room and giving them a soft, glowing edge.

We toasted to the past decade without trying to summarize it, because you can’t. You just notice what’s been built: the friendships that hold, the laughter that comes easier, the steadier sense of self that arrives when you stop racing toward some imagined version of “adult.”

If a birthday is anything, it’s a pause—a brief stillness before the year keeps moving. Jen looked happy, the kind of happy that doesn’t need announcing. Just a smile, a glass raised, and the gold behind her catching the light like it was meant to be there all along.

Silly 30th Bday with the Boys

Thirty feels like a small threshold you step over without noticing until you look back and realize the room has changed.

This photo catches the moment before the night blurs into laughter and louder music: three friends pressed close, coupe glasses raised, a gold fringe curtain behind us catching every bit of light. It’s silly on purpose. The kind of silly you can only commit to when you’re surrounded by people who have known you long enough to not ask you to be anything else.

Birthdays can make you count things—years, plans, what’s next—but nights like this pull you back into something simpler. The warmth of a crowded room. The shine of cheap decorations that somehow feel like celebration. The easy, familiar lean-in for a photo, the kind that says we’ve been here before and we’ll do it again.

I keep thinking about how memories live alongside you, the way a house creaks in winter or how a coat becomes part of a routine. Friendships do that too. They quietly collect in the background, then show up all at once when you need a reason to toast.

Silly 30th birthday with the boys—gold, laughter, and the kind of night that leaves you grateful the next morning.

Blue Dinosaur Birthday Scarf

There’s something quietly charming about a birthday gift that’s also practical—something you can wear on an ordinary cold morning and still feel the echo of a celebration.

Blue Dinosaur Birthday Scarf is exactly that: a deep navy knit with a single dinosaur stitched in pale blue, its small red eye bright against the dark. In the photo it’s folded neatly on a blue-and-white plaid bedspread, the kind of background that makes the whole thing feel like home—simple, soft, and familiar.

I like gifts like this because they hold time inside them. A scarf isn’t loud. It doesn’t demand a shelf or a special occasion. It just does its job: keeps your neck warm, tucks into a coat, goes along on errands, school mornings, and late walks when the sun gives up early.

And then one day you find it again in a drawer, and the memory comes back—who handed it to you, the cake, the small moment of being seen.

The dinosaur is playful without being busy, like a private joke stitched into the fabric. For a kid who loves prehistoric creatures, it’s an easy kind of magic. For the rest of us, it’s a reminder that growing up doesn’t have to mean sanding down every strange joy.

Sometimes the best birthday things are the ones that keep showing up, long after the candles are gone.

Hot Toddy with Bae

There’s something quietly grounding about setting everything out before the cold really settles in—like preparing a small ritual against winter.

On the tray: two empty glass mugs waiting to be warmed, a bright cut of lemon, cinnamon sticks, a few cloves, and star anise—sharp little reminders that comfort has edges. Beside it all sits the whisky, and in the reflection of the kettle you can almost see the room gathering itself: countertop, light, the soft blur of a home being lived in.

A hot toddy doesn’t need much. It’s not complicated, and that’s part of the point. You boil the water, let the steam fill the space, and measure the whisky without overthinking it. Add lemon for clarity. Add spice for depth. Honey if you want it gentler. Then you hand a mug to the person next to you and feel the day loosen its grip.

“Hot Toddy with Bae” is a simple title, but it holds the whole scene: the shared warmth, the small pause from whatever’s outside the windows, the way winter makes even ordinary moments feel a little more deliberate.

If you’re reading this with cold hands, take it as permission—set out the tray, heat the kettle, and make something that warms the air as much as it warms you.

The First Snow also on My Birthday Weekend

The first snow arrived quietly—right on my birthday weekend—and it changed the view outside the window into something softer, almost hushed. The city turns pale and powdery, and for a moment it feels like everything has been asked to slow down.

Inside, the room stays warm and familiar. A small tree glows in the corner, lights blinking against the gray afternoon. A “Happy Holidays” banner hangs across the windows like a small attempt to name the season before it fully settles in. Balloons linger at the edges of the room, a gentle reminder that celebration doesn’t always need noise.

I like this kind of contrast: winter pressing its cold face to the glass while the inside stays lit, lived-in, and steady. Snow has a way of making even ordinary corners feel more intentional—plants lined up on a sill, a lamp left on, the quiet shape of furniture waiting for the next cup of coffee.

There’s a particular feeling that comes with the year’s first snowfall: not exactly joy, not exactly nostalgia, but something in between. A small mystery in the mundane. If the weekend is a marker, then the snow is too—another sign that time is moving, and that it’s okay to pause and watch it fall.

30th Bday with Bae, My 2017 Birthday Celebration

| #birthday #party #boyfriendswhobirthday

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| For my 30th birthday in 2017, I was told I had to “do it big”. A concept I have never really been into for my birthday celebrations. However, being the big three zero, I decided to give it a shot.

Make A Holiday Wish

There’s something quietly ceremonial about a wishbone—small, ordinary, almost weightless in your hand, and yet it asks you to pause. To hope on purpose.

In the photo, the wishbone is set against a pale, marbled surface, like a simple relic placed carefully in the open. No table crowded with dishes, no loud proof of celebration—just the bare shape of tradition, the little forked “V” that has survived generations of holiday tables.

I like that moment after the meal when the kitchen settles. The scrape of plates slows, the air cools, and the day feels bigger than whatever was said too quickly or not said at all. The wishbone becomes a bridge between the practical and the imagined. You hold it, you pull, you laugh, and for a second you’re not measuring time by deadlines or distances—just by breath and anticipation.

Maybe that’s the real holiday wish: not a grand miracle, but a softer thing. The kind that lives alongside you, like a familiar house in winter—creaking, warming, remembering. A wish to keep the people you love close, to make room for the past without being trapped in it, to step into the next season with a little more light.

If you’re making a holiday wish this year, make it small enough to carry—and steady enough to keep.

22 piece Sushi Omakase

There’s something calming about watching an omakase unfold—like standing quietly in a familiar room and listening to the house creak and breathe. Behind the counter, the chef’s hands move with a practiced ease, pressing rice, smoothing edges, pausing just long enough to let each piece become its own small moment.

This was a 22 piece Sushi Omakase, the kind of meal that arrives one bite at a time and asks you to pay attention. You don’t rush it. You sit still. You let the rhythm set in: the soft thud of the knife, the whisper of nori, the clean scent of rice warming in the air.

Some pieces feel bright and ocean-clear; others are deeper, almost buttery, dissolving before you can name what you’re tasting. Between courses, the counter looks like a workbench—tools laid out, bowls and boards, the quiet order of someone who knows exactly where everything belongs.

Omakase means trust, but it also means surrendering your usual habit of deciding. There’s relief in that. The meal becomes less about choosing and more about noticing: texture, temperature, the way a brush of soy changes the finish, the way a single garnish can pull you back into the present.

By the end, I felt that familiar satisfaction that comes from simple craftsmanship—something made carefully, in sequence, with nothing extra. Just attention, handed across the counter.

A very Whiskey Weekend

The weekend had that soft, slow tilt to it—the kind where the hours don’t march so much as drift. A little whiskey on the counter, a little quiet in the room, and a small dog folded neatly into the blue rug like it was the only place that made sense.

Puppysitting sounds like a simple thing until you’re living inside it. You start listening for tiny movements. You learn the house’s new language: the shuffle of paws, the sigh that means “I’m settled,” the sudden alertness at nothing at all. Even the air feels different, held in place by watchfulness.

We called it “A very Whiskey Weekend,” partly as a joke and partly because it was true. Not a wild, bright story—more like a dim lamp in the corner, the kind that makes everything feel warmer than it is. The glass clinked once in a while. The conversation softened. And our temporary roommate kept us honest, eyes half-open, as if to say: don’t make a big production out of comfort.

By Sunday the rug had its own gravity. The dog stayed there, chin down, fur lit at the edges, looking like the weekend itself—tired, content, and unwilling to be hurried. Some moments don’t need improving. They just need noticing.